Kronos by Jeremy Robinson

you.”
    He watched as Giona headed for the surface, moving in tight circles, perhaps a little too fast, but not so fast that it would make her sick. They were still fifty feet apart when he felt a queasiness in his stomach. He could feel his hair trying to stand on end beneath the wet suit. He’d experienced a similar feeling once before, when a sniper had a bead on his head. It had saved his life then. He trusted it again.
    He swung around and saw only open sea.
    He turned back toward Giona and saw a nightmare unleashed upon reality. The shape slid through the water as easily as a comet through space. It looked like some kind of massive, organic roller-coaster ride, undulating up and down through the water. And Giona floated in its path.
    The next five seconds were a blur, but seemed to move in agonizing slowness. He managed to shout half her name,” Gio—”
    A mouth opened. Teeth flashed. Then she was gone, swallowed whole by the huge…fluid…thing. It took everything in one gulp, her body, her air tank, her camera. No trace of his daughter remained.
    The apparition that took her swirled deep into the darkness below.
    The ocean fell silent.
    Giona…his baby…his girl…had been taken from him in a surge of violence.
    Alone in the depths, Atticus wailed.
    Then, like a man possessed, he surged toward the surface, straight as an arrow, as fast as he could.

 
     
     
    9
     
     
    Jeffrey’s Ledge—Atlantic Ocean
     
    Atticus exploded from the ocean and onto the stern deck of the Bugaboo. He was moving so fast that it appeared that the ocean, his longtime love suddenly turned enemy, had forcefully expelled him. His mask, air tanks, and weight belt fell to the deck in a clump.
    His body shook with convulsions, heaving. The world spun around him. His head stabbed with intense, fiery pain. He struggled to his feet, slipping a few times, and headed for the bridge.
    Before reaching the door, he vomited, covering the front of his wet suit. He entered the pristine, freezing-cold cabin, without giving any thought to the bile dripping over the shiny floor and smooth leather seats. He switched on the CB as the cabin spun around him. He’d never experienced such vertigo, such confusion.
    He choked then held the CB to his mouth. “Oh God,” he said, “Someone help. God, please. It took my girl! It took her! So big…Like nothing I’ve seen before…no record of this thing…God…please, help. Help…”
    Atticus felt the cabin move around him. It was alive, closing in, consuming him. He formed the words slowly, deliberately, “Jeffery’s Ledge.” A moment later he was unconscious on the cabin floor. He vomited again, but was not aware of it. If he had been, he wouldn’t have cared. Nothing mattered. Not anymore. Life. Death. The world.
    Atticus had become a hollow man in the instant that creature had opened its powerful maw and sucked in his daughter. All that remained of the man was a void, as black and as deadly as the deep sea.
    ***
    A sterilized odor greeted Atticus when he awoke—a hint of apple. Blue light glared from above. Maria was dead.
    No.
    Giona…
    Atticus looked around. He was in a hospital.
    After glancing out the window, he realized he was at Portsmouth Regional Hospital. The sliver of blue in the distance reminded him of his daughter’s fate and confirmed his location. He had no memory of how he’d arrived or who had brought him. He couldn’t remember anything after surfacing from the ocean.
    He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the ocean, but even through closed eyelids he saw an open jaw, lined with teeth the size of the orange cones he’d set up for Giona’s soccer games when she was little.
    “You’re awake.”
    Atticus jumped in bed, throwing off his blanket with a shout. He turned, with clenched fists toward the voice. He came face-to-face with a woman, perhaps five-five, with wavy black hair and dark chocolate brown eyes. She stood silent and still, not at all threatened by his sudden